The Life of Jess

Hey Family! So it seems like everyone has made an entry on this thing except me, and I figured it was about time. Things are starting to wind downhere at BYU, with my first day of finals tomorrow. It's going to be crazy, study and taking my four finals, packing and cleaning my room and getting everything stored for next year, trying to have some fun with the girls whoI won't be seeing until next year, and the boys who are all about to headout on their missions.

As of today all of the boys officially have their mission calls. Byron - Las Vegas, Jeff - Michigan, Alaska - Australia,Weasley - Russia/Siberia (ouch) Chief - Australia. I'm so excited for them all and it makes me jealous and anxious to get out on a mission of my own, although it won't be happening for about another two years.

Some highlights of recent events are : getting into a car crash with byron (not my fault this time) and the subsequent court visit, skiing in april, salsa dancing, easter dinner with the group, fireworks and baseball games, volunteering at the Save Darfur booth on campus during Sudan awareness week, and a Fall Out Boy/All American Rejects concert (not exactly my type of music - punk rock - but still fun, especially when everyone rushed the stage on the last song). Right now I'm feeling very excited about heading to California to visit Elise and check out the food, shops, stars, and shore and then after that head to Hawaii for two glorious months! But of course, I'm a little sad about leaving all this, especially since I won't be seeing Byron and the rest of the boys. But mostly excited! Lots of new and exciting things to try (maybe even some skydiving :) ? ) Love, Jess

Hi from Mom!!

Hope everyone had a "sweet Easter". Sorry to hear that some of your candy was already melted.
I have had a really crazy week, but then again what's new?
We decided rather than spending Easter as "empty nesters" we would invite some friends over for lunch. We had The Greens and their three children, Pres. and Sister Parkinson and their newly returned missionary son and our ward Elders, Elder Weed and Elder Hilton over. We had a great time eating and getting better aquainted. Wev'e been eating the leftovers all week.

Spring has finally Sprung!! Now I remember why I like living here in The Garden State(NJ).
The daffodils, tulips, magnolia trees and forsythia are simply breathtaking. We have had sunny skies now for almost a week. I have spent a few hours in my garden and look forward to planting in just a few short weeks. The chirping birds are now waking me up in the morning and my morning run during seminary is quite enjoyable. Unfortunately my running buddies have been either out of town or injured the past few weeks.

For those of you who remember the nice man at The Station Stop I have some sad news-Tony died last week from thyroid cancer. The store was closed the day of the funeral in his honor. Many customers placed flowers outside the store. He was certainly a fixture in the neighborhood that will be missed! I used to talk about The Yankees with him and his Cronies.

Most of my spare time has been spent at Sage Eldercare this past week. I spent monday at Spend-A-Day. I am now introduced to the other clients as "the mormon". Richard, one of the clients has a son living in Salt Lake that is jewish and so every week he asks me questions about Steve Young, the Elders or the word of wisdom. I figure it can't hurt since there are a number of staff that listen to us and might learn something about our religion. Other times I have to remind them that we don't practice polygamy and have another discussion about the new show on television.

I have spent a good chunk of the week preparing for my CHOCOLATE class that I taught last night to the young women from the ward. I realized that I own at least 15 cookbooks just dedicated to Chocolate!! I went through all my favorite recipes, made cookbooks for the girls and baked about eight items for them to sample. I enjoyed the process as much as the actual class!!
There were about twenty girls and leaders in our kitchen last night for an hour and a half. I was reminded of how much I miss being part of the young womens program. Thankfully some of the girls I teach in sunday school came and were adorable. I shared a few cute thoughts about my love for chocolate
"When I die, I'm not going to be embalmed. I'm going to be dipped."

"I am a person who likes chocolate, as in I am a person who likes to breathe!

At any given moment , I can tell you the last time I had chocolate and can anticipate the next time I will have chocolate."

Did you know that in 2001 chocolate comsumption in this country was over three billion pounds.BILLIONS!!

Wish you were all living closer so you could help with the chore of eating all the leftover desserts! Fortunately tonight I am taking dinner to a family of 7 that just had another baby. They have been investigators for a few months so a week of meals ought to help.

For those of you worried about your mom and dad surviving in the event of an emergency I have just purchased a wheat grinder, 50 gallon jug for storing water, rolled oats, rice, pancake mix, and a variety of other staples. I am rearranging the shelves in the kitchen so that I can actually store more in the kitchen and less in the basement(which gets too hot and humid for food to survive). Our ward is focusing on food storage as part of Enrichment so I am trying to be Obedient.
Here is a thought to leave you with:

The sacred is in the ordinary...
in ones daily life...
in friends, family, neighbors...
in ones own backyard.
There is so much for each of us to be grateful for. This past Sunday I was reminded of the amazing gift of the Atonement that each of us has been given. It brings great peace and hope to each of us.
I hope you will attempt to seek out the sacred in your ordinary lives and remember that He lives!

Update from Dad

You're already aware of a few of my recent activities; General Authority/Area Seventy training meetings in SLC before General Conference, training meetings in Washington DC for the Area Seventy and mission presidents in the northeast and east areas with Elder Tingey; BYU Management Society dinner in Washington DC with Larry King and his wife and Kevin Rollins the CEO of Dell Computers (and a BYU alum); and being on Fox News. The Fox News story was about the Church's recent growth in the northeast and the URL is attached below.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/launchPage.html?041006/041006_fr_line&Word%20Spreads&FOX_Report&Mormon%20church%20growing%20quickly%20across%20New%20England&National&-1&Word%20Spreads&Video%20Launch%20Page

I spent an hour with the reporter and cameraman to produce my 15-second clip. However, you can't see me carefully avoiding questions about the Catholic sex abuse scandals. They wanted me to reinforce their story that the Church was growing because of the Catholics' problems. (Sometimes we have to be "wise as serpents" as well as "harmless as doves.") The Church has some strong common interests with Catholics and other religious peoples. President Hinckley was recognized for the Church's contributions to Catholic Charities. Sometimes it's more effective to work with others than to act alone. I can also show you the very gracious letter I received from NYC's Cardinal Egan when he was in Rome to participate in the selection of the new Pope. I had sent him a letter of condolence following the death of Pope John Paul II.

Another great activity was with Elder Ballard via a conference call from SLC during our training meetings in Washington DC. He really charged up everyone to work harder and do better as missionaries, and to stick with Preach My Gospel. Repeat: Stick with Preach My Gospel. No additions, supplements or substitutes. He was joined on the call by Elder Quentin Cook, who heads the Missionary Department and who I accompanied to a stake conference in West Virginia several weeks ago. Elder Ballard also talked about the importance of zone leaders being good examples as missionaries (not just driving around in their cars). He said zone leaders have to be able to show younger and struggling missionaries how to be successful.

Afterwards I thought about something Elder Packer once said about Elder Tingey: "If you want to know how to be a Seventy, watch Elder Tingey." I hope President Munday can say something similar to his missionaries: "If you want to know how to be an excellent missionary, watch Elder Smith and Elder E. Silva."

I thought I'd share a brief story President Hinckley told in our pre-General Conference training meetings to highlight the importance of tithing. On his first visit to Chile many years ago, he was assigned to organize the first stake. During the interviews to select the stake president, he observed a lack of tithing faithfulness and decided against organizing the stake at that time. When he told the people about his decision in the Sunday morning general session they were devastated. Can you imagine the courage it must have taken for him to do that when everyone was expecting a new stake? But, fortunately, the Chilean members accepted the challenge to become more obedient. President Hinckley returned after seeing significant improvement and organized the stake. There are now 75 stakes and 25 districts in Chile.

Two more things from my training before General Conference. First, at the conclusion of a meeting with all the Area Seventy, Elder Tingey asked each member of the Presidency of the Sevevnty to bear their testimony briefly. He based his own testimony on Helaman 7:7-9. He reminded us that despite all our challenges across the world, that these are our days and we have a special work to do now. That applies to each member of our family too.

Second, President Monson told us a number of wonderful stories. He was filled with great enthusiasm; perhaps more than I'd ever seen from him (he must very be confident that President Hinckley will be with us a long time). But, with Elder Packer's help, I heard the stories differently this time. He explained that their lesson is simple: "Heavenly Father knows who Tom Monson is and He also knows that Tom Monson will do what he's prompted to do." That's why President Monson gets so many promptings and how he is able to help so many people. President Monson's a great role model for us too.

Love, Dad

News from the SmithKirks...

Hello from Northern California! It has been a great week or so for us (especially Kristina since she’s on Spring Break!!). Highlights include the following events…

ELISE RETURNS… She was the first guest in our new little condo and in honor of her visit she helped us throw a big dinner party for a bunch of her friends. We sat Japanese style on the carpet over a big tablecloth with lots of napkins, since Kristina is a little OCD about getting anything on the semi-new beige carpet. She and Kristina also spent some quality time at the Valley Fair Mall hitting the sales and eating Mrs. Fields cookie sandwiches. Elise also visited the little people at Escondido and was their Fun Friday guest. She fielded questions about her new job and movie stars she’s met and she also shared some entertaining stories about her roommate’s crazy kitty. She had the little people rolling on the floor with laughter.

Another fun part of the weekend was Kevin’s guitar performance at the Stanford 2nd Ward’s Acoustic Café on Saturday night. He played to an audience of about two hundred crazy single people from wards all around the Bay area and sounded incredible!

SITTING ON THE COUCH… This week has also been full of THANK YOU card writing! We spent Monday-Thursday writing, addressing, and stamping wedding Thank You cards during every spare moment of our evenings. We only have 45 left!! Kristina wanted to pull an all-nighter and get them done but her smarter half vetoed that idea J. Fortunately we got a satellite dish (Dish Network) installed on Tuesday, so that has made the job more exciting for us. We’ve been able to keep up with Sharks hockey as they work their way to the Stanley Cup Finals and the continued Barry Bonds steroid scandal. Kristina has also been able to TiVo several episodes of the Gilmore Girls and Dawsons Creek.

THREE POINT SHOTS… Another highlight of the week came on Wednesday night when Kevin got a phone call from the 1st Counselor in our Bishopric asking if he would serve as the new Young Men’s basketball coach. Kevin enthusiastically agreed although he shocked the Bishopric when he told them he’d never played before. They assumed with his height he’d played basketball all the way through college!

So last night Kevin began his coaching career with the Lawrence Station Ward’s team (games are every Thursday night April- June). The boys out shot the other team and played incredibly—several boys nailed almost every three-pointer they tried. The boys were SO EXCITED to finally have a real coach. Kristina tagged along and sat with the moms and dads and learned the boys’ names and cheered loudly. We celebrated Kevin’s first night as coach with a trip to Chili’s, where we ate yummy food and got to watch the Sharks game AND the SF Giants game at the same time on the Sports Bar TVs. It was almost a little too many sporting events for one night for Kristina!

RIDING THE TRAIN… Kevin continues to work up in San Francisco, which means he gets to spend nearly three hours commuting per day. About two hours of the commute is spent riding CalTrain, where Kevin has recently been passing his time reading a Bill Simmons book about the Yankees and Red Sox. He works close enough to the KPMG powers-that-be that he often gets taken to lavish and exciting lunches, although his favorite is still Kristina’s cookin’ (especially the cookies!). The coming weeks will take him to Foster City and Mountain View, which should mean a shorter commute and more time with his beautiful wife. :-)

THE LITTLE PEOPLE GO TO WAL-MART… Spring Break is almost over for Kristina, but she’s super excited to return to work b/c next week the little people are taking a trip to the Stanford Geology Center AND Wal-Mart! In order to bribe the little people to be good, Kristina lets them pick what they want their reward to be after slaving hard to sit in their chairs properly, do their homework, and earn class points for several weeks. Last week’s chosen reward was a trip to Wal-mart, so next week we’re going to go on a scavenger hunt around Wal-mart to learn about prices AND we’ll get to buy some candy. It should be a great way to spend a morning (and hopefully it’ll help the little people learn something about money and buying things at the store too).

In addition to organizing field trips, Kristina has been entering the 21st Century by learning about the computer and how to create web pages. As part of the HP grant that landed her the super cool HP tablet PC, digital projector, and digital camera, the 3rd grade little people at Escondido have been working on creating a web site. Check out all the work they’ve been up to at http://www.sfbaylands.com/
Kristina also learned how to use Dreamweaver and has made a little progress on her own classroom website (still in the early stages). Check out what she’s done so far: http://staff.pausd.org/~krsmith

UPCOMING SMITHKIRK EVENTS… This weekend we’re heading up to the Oakland Temple to attempt to attend our first English speaking Endowment session (so far we’ve made it to Samoan and Spanish sessions). We’re also going to attend our last SJ Stealth lacrosse game of the year.

Happy P-Day! (From Elder Smith)

Another week has gone by rapidly in the mission field. This week has been to me pretty hectic and crazy. Seemed like we were always doing something, or always busy finding more people to teach. That's always good, and it keeps you focused.

Just to start off with, after I emailed y'all last week, we, being the Coventry missionaries, 3 sets of em, Elder Salmon and Chandler, Elder Lavender and Till, E Silva and Smith went to play Squash in town. Elder Till was the only one that put up a reasonable fight against me, but I still beat him in the two games we played. He's an Austrian, and it turns out, went to the same school as Hitler did. Interesting fact! He's a bit of a perfectionist, mixed with an anger management problem...he was constantly yelling and screaming when he lost points to me. The other missionaries just couldn't hack it. Now I can say so far in this zone, that not only am I the best missionary..but the best squash player!

The rest of the week me and Elder E Silva we're either tracting and street contacting constantly, or doing workovers with other missionaries. This past week we actually had some fun going down to push and help the missionaries in Solihull and Rugby. In Rugby we went down early Friday morning to do a planning session to see how they were planning. It's a relatively new missionary training a greenie...so there was bound to be mistakes being made that could be helped.

Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit. In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.

We spent about an hour and a half in the flat talking about planning, and especially about the need to drop non-progressing investigators, and stop kicking a dead horse with people that don't care, or are not coming to church. Hopefully they got the point on that. By the way, that was Elder Kool, a frenchmen, and Elder Peterson from Mesa, Arizona. After planning we went out tracting, me with the greenie from France and Elder E Silva with Elder Peterson. Elder Kool's a great missionary, and very motivated, but also very leadership minded, so it's kind of difficult for him not to have the reins and be directing things. He was asking me loads of questions, from life at home, to what being a zone leader is like, to how to best teach. It was pretty scary actually...thinking he'll actually take my advice. We didn't have too much success tracting, but I brought him over to a group of about 4 15-17 year olds to talk to. I introduced us, and basically put Elder Kool on the spot to teach. The greenie in him was very apparent, very nervous, short statements, lack of concentration and uncomfortable. He very briefly recounted the Joseph Smith experience which was good..but just left it at that when he was done. When we walked away he said to me "Its amazing how comfortable you are talking to them." I kind of smiled and told him he'd get there soon. He'll definitely be a great missionary. Hopefully there area can pickup a bit.

In Solihull when we went over there, there area as always was struggling a bit..but there motivation and level of discipline was high. They spent about 22 hours of tracting that week, and taught over 25 lessons. Currently there, it's Elder Staal from Holland and Elder Wood from SLC, Utah.

Initially we just went to the flat and I looked through there Area Book to see if there was anyone I thought they could go back to while Elder E Silva just chatted to them about life in general, and catchin up from the MTC since that's where E Silva and Staal first met. After about 20 minutes of that, we left to go tract. I went with Elder Wood who's the younger of the two and E Silva with Staal. I was asking him how he liked it, if it was tough, how he was responding and reacting to the lack of work and stuff. For now his energy and excitement are still high which is great. Now that the sun's out it definitely should keep them a bit happier...random sidenote, read yesterday that Joseph Fielding Smith and Brigham Young both in their opinion believe the sun to be a celestialized earth which I thought was pretty cool...Why not?! It was definitely good to chat with him to see how he's doing personally, if he's having any struggles in kind of a roundabout way to see if we could sort out...but also to see how he's studyin, what he's studyin, and how good of a teacher and committer he is. We talked a little bit about books to read, and I did my best to steer him towards the missionary library, and especially to start off with Jesus the Christ, as he was mentioning some other kind of random ones he wanted to read. I basically told him my opinion of some of the books he wanted to read, and some of the books I had read, and which would most help him and he'd find most interesting. And again, he'll probably take my advice...gotta love it. As we neared the end of the road, I had a mini-spiritual experience which was great. I see more and more each day how the spirit really does work subtly. I initially saw a younger guy walking on the road next to us on the sidewalk who I just about didn't say anything to...then I thought, I should...and just went with it.

The guy is about 25, named Craig and again I just introduced us, and said Elder Wood would explain about our message. He taught a great lesson on the Restoration, and prefaced it well with the apostasy of religion generally and the fact that there is a God and he does love us, and demonstrates it by giving us prophets to lead us. Craig said he was kind of a scientific guy, and we were like great man, religion is about truth, even more so than scientific theory. We got his address as he had to scurry off, but hopefully they can teach him and see him. After we finished tracting we went home and we had dinner with them. Elder Staal is a very speculative and creative guy and so we had a long discussion about President Mundays most recent zone Conference on the fall of Adam and eve which was pretty enlightening. I stuck pretty much to the scriptures and he kind of got off speculative....which basically every time was proved to be untrue from the scriptures. Dad's taught me well about how to use the scriptures as a standard to establish doctrinal truths so that people don't get off track. Right before we left Solihull, I was on the phone with one of the assistants, Elder Tucker, reporting numbers for about 35 minutes which was like a freakin marathon. I was exhausted after explaining, or excusing, or having to take accountability for the shortcomings or failures of the Zone...was kind of rough since everyones struggling...but slowly improving. I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them. On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.

I'll just mention a couple other things before talking about our investigators and teaching them.

On P-day me and Elder E Silva found out Elder Chandler's birthday was on Thursday, and he basically didn't get any letters or packages from home, or any reference to it being his birthday in his emails on Pday...so we thought we'd better sort that out.

There wasn't too much we could do...but we decided to go over to ASDA, the UK Equivalent to Wal-Mart and buy some things to have a breakfast for the whole Coventry flat to celebrate his bday. We got a sign that said "Baby's 1st Birthday", some Happy Birthday plates, some instant Bisquik pancake mix, syrup and blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. I was the blueberry man, Elder E Silva was goin for the healthy style breakfast of chocolate. The next morning we woke up at 6, got all dressed, grabbed our skillet and food, and went over. It worked out great, because Elder Chandler and Salmon went out to go for a run, so the flat was decorated and the pancakes we're already being made in time for them to come back. It was great because we all got to eat, study together and start off the day well, both altogether and celebrating Elder Chandlers bday. He said "I just figured it was going to be like any other day"...so we changed that up and made it better. Me and Elder E Silva are going to ry to get all the names of the missionaries in our zone, and try to pop in and make them breakfast to celebrate. What they don't know...is that it's also a good opportunity to check up on them in the morning, make sure they wake up on time, study and leave the flat to work...muahahahaha nor just cause we like to eat! Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.

Just yesterday, Elder E Silva had a baptism in one of his previous areas called Stourbridge, which is just beyond Birmingham just about an hour from Coventry. President gave us permission to leave just after the 2nd hour to make our getaway...with a few Easter chocolate eggs in tow being crammed down our throats...mmm.

Well, mmm for a little bit...until I got a headache and felt gross due to the excess of chocolate.
But that's expected on Easter. So yah, we drove all the way there, and it was one of the best baptisms I was able to witness. This less active lady named Phillipa was tracted into by some missionaries, which they subsequently taught her husband Chris for awhile, including Elder E Silva. It was great because she was reactived slowly by the missionaries..and with time he was slowly himself listening more and more. He first was reluctant, then less resistant, then listened to the message, then started reading passages from the Book of Mormon, then he would read everyday, then church attendence then baptism...whoo. Phillipas dad, who's about 82 and pretty frail ended up baptising Chris. One of the past missionaries was also in the font just to make sure Chris, who's pretty big, was able to be brought up by Phillipa's dad. Kind of weird having 3 guys in the font, but it worked out well. After the baptism, and confirmation we had some food there which I liked. But also one of the past missionaries, who had gone home and was there, had brought his sister. She's what you'd call a frog, and she was all flirty, asking me if I was on LDS Linkup and all this crazy stuff. Me and elder E Silva we're like "uhhhhhhhhhh what's goin on here". I did an exit stage left and just stayed by the food so I wouldn't have to keep my shield up and dodging. Eventually we went back to their house for about 20 minutes to have a drink and get them Elder e silva's email address which was cool. There were a very average British family, with a house and kids....not living by the government and divorced which was a shock to me. I was thinking it was impossible to get a family going to church that was normal here.

I guess they all left with Dan Jones and Wilford Woodruff back in the day.
Alright, well that's pretty much kind of some things that went on...but now I'll tell you who were teaching and what's goin on in our area. We spent about 18 hours this week knocking doors and a couple in the town centre which was pretty useful...we found lots of people to try back at. We don't have any real solid progressing investigators yet, but that will change.

We have a guy named Atilla from Hungary, so basically we're teaching Atilla the Hun. We just got him a book of Mormon in his language and he's been to church a few times. He's girlfriends down this week, so we probably won't get much time to chat with him. He's a real nice guy and his English is moving along very well. I feel pretty confident that we can baptise him. When we went over there we just talked to him about his life, and then gave him the Book and set up a return appointment. It wasn't really a teach I would say.

We also got a media referral, where someone orders a DVD from the TV. We delivered the DVD on Wednesday to a "Wisdom Yegbe". Me and Elder E Silva we're giggling and thinking we'd also be meeting "Charity" and "Love". At the door we met, Caroline and Susan who both were very nice to us and said "Your the Mormons". Both black and from Ghana. We rescheduled since Wisdom was sick and came back Saturday. We asked them if they'd watched the DVD, and they had already..twice!

That's always good. Saturday came, and we knock knock knocked, and eventually Susan answered and let us in. We went in and sat down to a couple black guys watchin Cradle 2 the Grave, some jet lee movie with loads of swearing. They shut it off, and we met Jude, Wisdom and Ben, all from Accra, Ghana. All very quiet, but nice and very Christian guys. They we're all preppin for a big Easter party that night so we got a bit of cake and sparkling juice. We decided to watch the Restoration DVD with them about Joseph Smiths first vision which went very well. They asked a bunch of questions, so we basically reiterated the whole first vision account so they got it that time. After explaining about the Book of Mormon, it actually got pretty cool. Jude, one of the guys was quoting a few scriptures about how no man has ever seen God, not in an antagonistic way but like 'i thought no one had?". Wisdom, clearly the leader there, started referencing scripture after scripture. I mentioned that was a mistranslation with reference to man never seeing God and being in his presence naturally but had to be changed, or his spiritual eyes had to be opened. Then Wisdom was like "It could have been like the Transfiguration on the Mount with Joseph when God appeared to Joseph". Elder E Silva and I were like "Woah". It was actually really cool to have your investigator listen and understand your message, then discourse and defend scripturally the message you shared to others in the room. We just sat back and we're thinking "Wisdom, you take the floor'. Before we left, we gave out Books of Mormon and the new restoration leaflets and set another appointment. I think we're going to baptise that whole house. What's great as well, is that they've been to our church in Accra with friends and know of the temple there.

I was going to leave the investigators from the Ghanans, but we just got home from another appointment and I thought I'd mention it while it's fresh. I street contacted a young lady with 2 kids on Saturday named Phillipa, got her addy and made an appt to see her Monday. We went over Monday, and she wasn't there, but her mom and grandma were. As it turns out they were Christian Scientists...but also somehow like Church of England at the same time. Wasn't too sure what was going on there. Both these ladies chatted forever, basically talking at us about their Christian work and how they help the Coventry area. The ladies generally are more Christian minded, the men, the doctrine. After relating some good experiences they both had(and mentioning that Coventry had the only prison to hold prisoners back in the day...hence the "Sent to Coventry" phrase) we got down to business. These ladies were Verina and Louise. Louise had been given the Joseph Smith Restoration pamphlet from her daughter and suprisingly read the whole thing. We for awhile talked about God, how he loves us, and there lots of "Yes"'s, etc and agreement. Louise, the mom, understood the idea of apostasy and persecution so that fascilitated our explaining of the Apostasy after Christ. At the same time, it was amazing as we spoke about Reformers how she was pretty content that any church of God would do. Elder E Silva asked how you could find out which church was true...which got them onto some random tangent, but I pulled it back asking a few questions. Since we already knew they believed God answers prayers I said "What if I was a leader of a church, and taught God did not answer prayers, could my church be Gods church?"

I think she got that, but tried to pull another tangent and deflect it Bill Clinton style by avoiding it. I brought it back again by establishing that only through Christ do we gain salvation, and any other church teaching otherwise would of course not be true. Sometimes you don't want to hurt little old ladies, or moms faith by saying there church is wrong..but there perception was way off in left field. After a few establishing points, we came around to Joseph, and the necessity of God's visit to him and subsequent answer. I really felt strong and powerful as I testified to them, the spirit was definitely there and I know it touched there hearts just for that moment. As I recounted the First Vision, Louise also said out loud "above the brightness of the sun" and the grandma's eyes were slightly red. Due to the culture and tradition...and old ladiness, they got onto another tangent, which we decided to kill off, commit to read 3 Nephi 11 and make an appt.

That only took another 15 minutes. Dang chatty ladies! Both these ladies were very sweet, very Christian, and happily inquisitive which is good. I left just thinking to myself, our church is God's church, there's no confusion, no misperception, no speculative or man made doctrine, we all know the truth which I love.

It's awesome so far being a Zone Leader. I definitely like being able to teach and direct a little bit, without usurping unrighteous authority...but doin it in the right way. It's also been great to drive every other day. We have a small little red, 2 door, 5 seater car called a Corsa. It's a 1.0 litre car which means 0-60 in 10 minutes ..or no acceleration. Kids on their bikes can leave the lights faster than we can.

It's great though because it gets us around quick and we can spend time tracting and not biking so much.

Tomorrow should be another great p-day. President in his desire to get everyone working hard and unified has been letting the District Leaders do overnight workovers without callin him to ask for permission, so far it's goin well. Elder E Silva and I as well, decided to have a Zone Pday where we would play Squash and go bowling with everyone in Coventry, and also talk about how things need to improve, and people need to start getting investigators baptised. Hopefully we can do a bit of inspiring tomorrow.

Hope everyones week goes great, ours has!

Love,
Elder Smith

Elise's Highlights...

I don’t think I would be a happy person without the moments that I have everyday to reflect on life, and to really try and sit back and appreciate all of God’s creations. For me, that time of day is the best part of my day, and it happens while I’m running. This New Year has provided me with a lot of opportunities to reflect and explore, in particular because in the past three months I’ve been in San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Diego, Pismo Beach, Montreal, Cleveland, and a dinky little down called Storrs-Mansfield, Connecticut.

Most recently, in Montreal, I ran up part of Mont Royale, so that I could see the beautiful vistas of the city in the early hours of the morning. As I ran, I reflected on how much my shin splints hurt, and how lucky I was to get to explore the city before anyone else was awake. I ran down the streets of St. Catherine’s shopping district that were virtually empty of any semblance of tourists. Later on that day as I walked back along the street, barely able to move, I appreciated the moment that I had, had to have that street all to myself for a brief time.



In Boston, my runs took me across The Charles and down to Harvard Square, where I felt the weight of history and scholarship that resounded from the Harvard Library walls. It also gave me time to enjoy the bitter New England cold weather (I was wearing four layers and was still cold) and realize that California hasn’t made me as soft as I thought it had.

In Baltimore I ran along the waterfront through cobblestone streets and forcing myself to get a hill workout by running up to the very top of the fort that overlooks the city. From that vantage point I felt very small, but strong, as I was able to once again enjoy the city before anyone else had for the day.

Even in Los Angeles, as I run up to the top of “my killer hill” that overlooks Santa Monica, the Pacific Ocean, and the Hollywood sign, and as I run alongside bumper-to-bumper traffic, I am still able to get that peace and quiet time.



I think everyone needs to find a moment everyday to reflect, be thankful, and realize how small we are in such a great an amazing world. I don’t know what I would do without it, because it’s the best part of my day.







Some fun highlights from the past few weeks for me have included:
1) Visiting Kristina and Kevin in Santa Clara
2) Attending SAGE's biggest national conference in San Francisco (AERA)
3) Having my friends Heather and Corene be my first overnight visitors to my apartment in L.A.
4) Going to Huntington Library and Gardens in Pasadena to see the Gutenberg Bible and other important publishing momentos.
5) Riding the Ferris Wheel at the Santa Monica Pier during a full moon.
6) Getting to see Ken Starr and Ricky Schroeder in the same night.
7) Learning the "real" story behind Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' marriage :)
8) Eating dinner at a fabulous Greek restaurant in Malibu right by the ocean.

I hope you all have a great week!!
Elise